Julia by Darya Sokolova
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 90 x 120 cm
Year: 2024
Price: $2300.00 USD
Status: available
This painting is a part of series called “Power & Presence”. After leaving Kazakhstan, I built my life across countries where male leadership was the only story being told. I watched women work twice as hard for half the recognition, while my exterior was noticed first, my intelligence discovered later, if at all. These portraits are my corrective. I paint women at monumental scale with commanding palettes. Deep burgundies, emerald greens, regal golds. Because that's the truth of our importance, not the diminished version we've been sold. Women are just as essential as men. These women don't wait for permission. They don't apologize for their intelligence. They understand what I learned building my future from nothing: our power doesn't need validation. It just needs visibility.
Why collect this work?
A tightly cropped frontal portrait turns bodily presence into a contest between an individualized face and a garment organized as repeating signs.
- Sokolova identifies Julia as part of her “Power & Presence” series, conceived as a corrective to women’s diminished recognition. That stated aim clarifies the commanding format, though the painting’s authority rests on its formal construction rather than intention alone.
- The figure nearly fills the composition, with shoulders cut by the edges and dark hair forming a broad frame around the face. Directly aligned eyes hold attention, while irregular rings and bright centres distribute it across the pale torso.
- Catalogued as acrylic on canvas, 90 × 120 cm, the work uses the medium’s capacity for opaque fields and sharply drawn contours. In the photograph, limited modelling in the face contrasts with flatter pattern and background, separating likeness from emblem.
- Encountering this work within contemporary portraiture raises a specific question: whether visibility comes from individual likeness or from graphic force. Julia keeps both possibilities active, making recognition itself the subject of the portrait.
About the Artist
Darya Sokolova
Darya Sokolova is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Nationality: Kazakh
I create art for women who refuse to blend in. My portraits are bold, symbolic, and designed to be the statement piece in any space.
